The Mountain

Monday, 23 September 2013

Some of these will not
make it onto this site (too long, too crap or simply being shopped
out to markets), but there have been the following stories produced.
I'm even very proud of some of these for now:

A rewrite of “The
Last Street Samurai” (from 1000 to 1500 words)

A rewrite of the story
“Tribunal” (from 1000 words to 5000)

A story for the
Clarkesworld cyborg anothology (in progress)

A crowdsourced story
for my writing group (5000 words)

A short story
competition for the writing group again (8000 words)

A bit of ongoing work
on my novel idea.

A short story called
“After the End” for the BSFA competition (5000 words, missed
submission)

Some of these will find
themselves on here in due course and I'm sure more flash fiction will
follow.

I'm not saying I'm
magically charming and knowledgeable, but I like to think that the
discussions are quite fun and relaxed. If you have any comments about
anything I've said, just let me know; I'm always happy for a chat and
enjoy the chance to talk about genre fiction.

So far we have
discussed movies, books and the relative hardness of science fiction
and the apparent absence of hard sci-fi. Also coming soon is a series
of episodes featuring the Glasgow genre fiction scene and this
chap and the prevalence or otherwise of zombies in fiction and,
slightly differently, good zombie fiction.

3. Been reading!

Lots of stuff, but a
(very) recent favourite was Deadpool, The Complete Collection, Vol.
1; made me laugh out loud several times this morning and, if you have
a suitably absurdist sense of humour, is something I heartily
recommend!

Also, I've been
enjoying a bit of Stross, retreading over the Honor Harrington series
by Weber, listening to Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan and finishing
off the Vorkosigan saga. Very enjoyable and now dovetailing into a
series of nonfiction titles.

PS. Listening to Morgan
now and the reader is doing a purely comic delivery for a sex scene –
been giggling for the last three minutes.

Sunday, 18 November 2012

“It was a pleasure,
boys...” crooned the huckster, his smile gleaming white. He was
sure of his victory, raking the chips back towards himself.

“BANG!” shouted the
gun that Tyson pulled, his face a snarl in red and livid white. He
was sure no oily huckster was going to fiddle him at cards.

One-Eye's knife said
nothing as it sang its quiet song, coming to rest on Tyson's mottled
throat. He wasn't sure about anything; still, he had the money he
needed, the prisoner he wanted and the cheat's corpse at his feet.

Tuesday, 13 November 2012

A little while ago Chuck Wendig created a writing challenge to do with hiding the body. The challenge was called The Body (arrestingly enough) and I have tried to write it. As always, any thoughts are much appreciated.

This is well over 1000 words, but it feels like the right length, behold:

The Body

They called him The
Watcher in the gallery because every day he would come and sit in
front of the new reproduction of The Raft of the Medusa. This
started at the opening of the exhibition on a Monday in autumn and
lasted for many a long week, each day the gentleman showing up at the
same time with a carton of juice and a small package of wrapped
sandwiches.

Sometimes art students
would come and sit next to him and regard the painting as he did,
pencils scritching and sliding across heavy, creamy paper as they
sketched a small part of a figure, or roughed out a detail of
swirling sea and soaked, broken timbers.

Every now and then, he
would lean over, look at the book and nod, smiling if he saw a figure
from the scene rendered well, with the subtle vibrancy that Gericault
had captured. For himself, he never drew the painting, just sat and
regarded it, his legs crossed and his demeanour one of repose at a
perfect ease.

In the same way as he
sat and watched, he would stand every day, ten minutes before the
gallery closed and walk over to the painting, looking in what was
obviously plain admiration at the rendering of grey flesh on the
drowned man in the lower left hand corner of the painting, the corpse
depicted draped over the battered timber of the raft. He would then
leave, and in leaving, pass the coffee stand as it closed up,
politely and quietly asking for a fresh latte before he paid and took
the drink out with him into the early evening air.

/////

It had been a long two
months for Livia, her heart still heavy from the brutal uncertainty
of mourning in front of an empty coffin with her family. As she
opened up her satchel and saw her drawing box, she felt tears sting
her eyes, dashing them away with the backs of her hands as she sat,
on a bench in the middle of the gallery.

Her tutors had been
understanding, but she had to compile extensive sketches of this
painting and write up her report before the end of the semester in
order to avoid having to resit or do summer study. With the cost of
the flights home for the funeral, she needed to be able to work all
summer long to pay for the next semester anyway and now that Mario
was gone, she would probably be glad of the company.

There was nothing to do
but to work hard and aim for the best grades she could.

/////

Turning to a new page
in her sketchbook, she pulled out her conte crayons and got to work,
her mind slowly clearing and emptying of all other things as she
sketched and sketched, her mind away and quiescent as she let her
hands find the shapes of the figures.

A guilty part of her
knew that part of this escape was from thoughts of her brother,
missing now for months, the subject of a manhunt that had briefly
captured the imagination of the city before fading into the foetid
wallpaper of urban life, his existence reduced to a few desperate
flyers pinned to lampposts asking for information.

Still, she worked,
sketching out the structures on the canvas, the famed triangular
composition of hope and death and despair, the romantic loucheness of
these naked figures, sprawled in mockeries of sybaritic repose, limbs
tangled artfully and morbidly in the accidental embraces of death and
suffering.

She smiled wanly and
absently as her neighbour leaned over her sketchbook and nodded,
smiling at the drawings pencilled there.

As he stood and made
his way over to the painting, studying the figure lying drowned in
the bottom left, she sighed and leaned back, rubbing her neck and
taking a breather. She would carry on drawing the handsome corpse
when he moved out of the way.

/////

The tape was stretched
across the gallery entrance as she walked up the steps, her brow
creased in confusion as the police milled around in the foyer, their
eyes dark and haunted as a black bodybag was pulled out of the
building on a gurney. Beside her stood the gentleman from the bench
in front of the painting, the carton of juice unopened and sticking
out of a dark blazer pocket.

She paid him little
mind as he sighed quietly and brushed past her, gently strolling
across the grounds and out of sight as she tried to get the attention
of an officer.

“Uh, can you tell me
when the gallery is going to be open again? I don't want to sound
heartless, but my degree is riding on this...”

The man she had asked
demurred and shrugged helplessly, saying something about proper
procedure and prints and evidence. She felt like she had been kicked.
It could not get any worse.

She felt a hand on her
shoulder and looked into the grey eyes of the detective her family
had been talking to those months ago. He looked older now and
unhappy, but still resolutely courteous as ever.

“You'll have to come
with us, Ms. D'Angelo.”

/////

She sat outside the
precint, her face in her hands, and wept in deep ragged sobs, her
sketchbook lying closed in her lap and anointed with the splashes of
fresh tears.

The detective had
explained in great depth but it was like a nightmare: the body had
been found in the attics, lit carefully and arranged in the same
repose as the figure in the painting. The flesh of the body had been
dehydrated and plastinated, preserving it in mannequin like death,
the skin tinted with balms and dyes to mimic the original image.

They had only found
this out when the prism mounted to the back of the reproduction
canvas had come unglued, leaving a dark hole where the drowned man
should have been. Where Mario's corpse had stood in for so long, eyes
closed and patient under the distant scrutiny of his younger sister.

As she blew her nose,
she tucked the used tissue into her jacket pocket and felt a card in
there, the plain rectangle of business card stock.

Pulling it out she
stared at the neat, even type on the card, seeing the marks where it
had been embossed, looking at it, but not understanding it.

“You drew him so
well.”

Her screams brought
policemen racing out of the precinct, their hands on their guns and
panic in their eyes.

When they saw her, they
could only marvel that the grey paleness born from the depth of her
terror made her look like she had simply stepped out of the painting
and into the world; drowned, but still breathing.

Monday, 24 September 2012

Well, in a weekend of mixed fortunes, I had a great time and got robbed.

I had been working on a story for the Terribleminds challenge and I'm not going to lie: I wasn't winning. I had to write about a Paranormal Romance/Dragon/Paris 1944. Well, I had an idea; I think it was a good one.

An older couple, entering their fifties, with a lot of history between them, not all of it good. It would be atmospheric, poignant, a bit different to most paranormal romance (handsome 20-somethings face banging in the rain or equivalent) and quietly charming. I'd write it from the position of the woman for a change.

Well, I must have a stunted imagination because I couldn't make it work; it didn't flow and on redraft five, I was resigned to the fact that I would miss the challenge deadline. But I thought I was getting there on that fifth draft. I was very close to the rhythm, to the gesture, the tension that I wanted.

Then, the house I was staying in with friends over the weekend was burgled. Ipod, gone. Camera, gone. Prescription sunglasses, gone.

Notebook... gone.

The phrase I was looking for was, "EEEEEAAAAAAaaaaaaRRRRRRGGHHHHHHHYOUFUCKINGFUCKINGFUCKS!"

Anyway, I made peace with myself and went about the business of buying, in a truly extravagant shopping trip, most of what I had lost (sans glasses and camera).

I was desolate. Not because I needed the book to remember what I had to write, but because it kind of wounds the soul when something that personal disappears into the hands of cretins.

I haven't written much at all since. Not really sulking, but just jolted out of the tracks (and Chuck's challenge for this week holds no interest for me either) so I will wait for a day or two for my mojo to come back and then head out and find it if I don't.

On a happier note, the first half of the weekend was pure gold to be honest; well worth it. Also, just got a phone call suggesting that they may have found the notebook dumped by the side of the road a bit away from the house, so I may be able to get it posted back to me.

Thursday, 13 September 2012

This one is a response to Chuck Wendig's challenge "A Game of Aspects"I didn't do the random number generator thing as I wanted at least a chance of doing a complete entry by the deadline date.Anyway, coming in at 1053 words, this is a story which incorporates Dystopian/Serial Killer/Fated to Die (not super original, but I love these tropes).I hope you enjoy the entry - after my ramblings about punk this week, I'm backing myself to not look like a fool. Comments are more than welcome.

The Last Street Samurai

Glancing up through his
sun-roof at the looming mirrored glass monolith, Poke shuddered and
pulled his coat tight, the oppressive monsoon heat an increasingly
distant sensation. The Blaze neurostim was kicking in as the precious
seconds crawled past.

In the glare of night
time city lights, the sharp profile of the ChrysTech building looked
ominous as usual, poised to fall on city like the sword of Damocles.
From the stuff in the files he had put together, this wasn't too far
from the truth.

With shaking hands, he
pulled out a baccstick, and put it to his lips Mixing drugs be
damned, he needed to be sharp.

It
was difficult to resist slamming the gas pedal down and powering
away. They were running late and it was a slow torture to have to sit
and wait; each heartbeat was a moment they weren't making distance,
getting a lead.

The
tension was shattered by a headless body fired through a fifth storey
window in a shower of glass and blood. A second, similar figure was
thrown out after the first and followed by a vision of menace in gold
and carbon fibre. There was a vivid slash of glittering orange
against the black night sky.

A
spray of gore, five stories up and falling, signified end of mission
phase one.

/////

A
parked FlightLimo four spaces ahead erupted into a fountain of blood,
metal and glass as the falling trio slammed into it at speed.

Swallowing,
coughing on nicotine smoke, Poke kicked the accelerator and his ride
snaked it's way out of the parking bay. He pulled up to the impact
site with a screech of rubber and listened to the rain of vehicle
parts pinging off his new paint job.

Rolling
down the window he saw the two ChrysTech security corpses were
twisted in a gory confusion of car and flesh, a slender figure in a
tattered haori and hakama straightening up amidst all of this and
turning to face him, cybernetic limbs still shining beneath the
layers of grime and ichor.

“You
get the cores, Serial?” Poke asked.

His
partner nodded and calmly made his way over to the car, stepping out
of the wreckage and replying, “Acquired.”

There
was a pause before Serial added, “We lost Honey to hostile action.”

/////

Poke
cursed and threw away his baccstick, eyes watering with a
Blaze-enhanced rush of emotion that threatened to break him. He
barely registered as Serial handed him a small bag full of military
grade cores, the roughly excised jacks of their unfortunate operators
attached, often still with a ragged ring of gelid, cooling flesh left
on.

Poke
held down his gorge and concentrated on getting the valuable cargo
into the shockpod he'd had installed in the back seat, squeamishly
prodding all the trailing leads into the container and getting it
secure. He shot a dark glance at his partner, Serial Killer, as the
hermetic seal hissed and beeped as the lock engaged.

All
of the cybered set new that no-one did counter-intel like Serial, but
few realised how apt this guy's name really was sometimes. He
wondered what Honey's loss would do to the cyborg.

Sighing,
Poke pressed another button and the passenger door hissed open, but
Serial made no move to get in the vehicle. He seemed detached as he
flicked the blade, the flakes of scorched blood fluttering out into
the air; he seemed to be waiting. Poke wished he knew what this guy
was thinking, but the ocular implants obliterated his expression and
even the part of his face showing offered no clues.

Impassive
and deadly, Serial looked every inch the grey operative, the tech
mercenary, the hitman...

The
swordsman.

/////

“Get
in, you crazy bastard!” Serial gave a little hissing grunt at
Poke's wired, panicked tone, “We've got to get these out before
they can get mercs of their own on the case!”

The
swordsman paused then, suddenly poised like a hunter, and pointed to
the comms scanner he wore, “Armoured reinforcements,” he offered
casually.

“Come
on!” Poke wailed, moving to open his door and remonstrate with
Serial, “We've got to-”

He
was cut off as a cold, metal hand forced the door shut against all
his efforts. Serial was looking down at him, that creepily direct
stare of someone looking through artificial optics. The swordsman
seemed to almost hum with suppressed emotion, but turned away to look
down the road, letting the sword rest by his side, ready.

“You
will go, Poke. I have finished my part of the contract,” Serial
seemed to weigh his sword in his hand for a second, before lifting
his chin, “I must now seek to satisfy the demands of my honour.”

“Honey
left something with you, I believe.” Serial said, not turning to
face his partner.

Poke
was white, sweating and at a total loss as he activated a hidden
compartment, the pocket within holding only a tanto blade, sheathed
in ebony and mother of pearl. He turned awkwardly and presented the
weapon to Serial through the window.

His
partner took it with a nod and a small, sad smile. Far down the road
the lights and growling engines of the ChrysTech rapid response team
began to stain the surreal quiet of this moment. To Poke, the smile
was the most terrible thing he had ever seen on a mission; it was
alien and strange on the usually impassive face of his partner.

“I
shall buy you some time,” Serial said finally, sliding the tanto
into his obi, tucking it beneath the mounting of his katana, making
them both, again, a matched pair.

/////

In
Poke's rear view mirror, he could see the dwindling figure of Serial
Killer silhouetted against the bright halogens of the pursuit
vehicles. He watched the street samurai walk away from him and into
legend, until he couldn't bear to watch any longer.

In
his imagination, the roar of the engine sounded mournful as the car
ate up the night, flying through the sleeping streets and open roads.
It was a long, lonely journey to the rendezvous and the coming dawn,
but he didn't hear the sounds of pursuit.

Wednesday, 12 September 2012

I've spent a few minutes over the last few days thinking about being a punk, or how being a punk might affect your life. This is mostly to do with how we tend to use the word punk nowadays and how the usage of the word within the genre fiction community is moving away from a sense of political comment and towards an emptier sentiment of the "cool-sounding descriptor".

To unpack that last sentence a bit, I think formulations that add the -punk suffix are turning into the same phenomena of describing weird things as "like [uncontroverisal thing], but on acid!" It's a hyperbole that no-one who took acid would see the same way as a credulous member of the public. Everyone would sort of know what you meant, but not many people would appreciate what that would actually be like.

For the sake of full disclosure, I'd like to point out that I don't have any problem with steam-powered swashbuckling adventure or whimsical clockwork flights of fancy or any of the wonderful and interesting tropes that Steampunk, Dieselpunk or Clockpunk bring to the party. I'd also like to admit to not being much of a punk at all; I just think that when you use a term as powerful and meaningful as "punk", you need to respect it.

So let's walk the line of nPunk, some words that have been punk-ified:

The Inkpunks - This is a group of authors, editors and creatives that features Sandra Wickham and numerous other likeable individuals. I can even see why there is some kind of overlap in terms of DIY type activity (crochet, craft and artistic projects). I have the least amount of problems with this kind of thing in the context of the above comments; it just seems like a snappy name, not a manifesto choice. (Feel free to tell me otherwise!)

Cyberpunk - This is punk, extrapolated. It was born in a time where a popular punk movement was being developed and propagated in wider social awareness; the themes of nihilism, political involvement, direct action, the opposition to oppressive forms of commercial and government activity, anarchism and the pursuit of an alternate lifestyle all seem to feature in the literature. It's not high philosophy, but has an authentic and believable attitude to issues the authors believe will proliferate and worsen over time.

The best addition to the genre, over and above the issues that were contemporary to punks at the time, was the question of humanity and where one drew the line between human and machine. I may be absolutely derivative and write acres of dreck whenever I try and address the subject, but it's still captivating.

Steampunk (and Clockpunk and Teslapunk and etc.) - Now here, I have a problem. I think it's best to chop the issue into bits:

1) I know it was a kind of joke name for a genre; I'm fine with people having a sense of humour about this stuff and I like a lot of the more swashbuckling adventures and other related fiction I have seen. This much is OK.

2) I don't know what Steampunk is anymore. That's not some kind of existential wail, it's just difficult to put it all into context. Is it a fashion and DIY-based movement with an aesthetic and a catchy name? Is it a genre of alternate histories around a common theme of the use of steam that tends to feature Victorian social mores and a basis in pulp novels and penny dreadfuls? Or is it actually capable of addressing serious social issues, bringing to light some of the political upheavals in the Victorian period and judging them against our own progress (or lack of it)?

3) Am I reading the right stuff? Am I just missing all the interesting works where serious issues are being addressed? I've enjoyed the Diamond Age, ripped through Retribution Falls and the Black Lung Captain at a ferocious pace, enjoyed The Native Star and have purchased the sequel and generally found the books to be good fun. I just can't remember any really serious examinations of race and class and gender; they all just seem to ultimately fall into the background of Victoriana; I can't remember reading Steampunk that had a punk sensibility.

4) Here's the root of it; why call something punk and then not treat it like the wonderful portmanteau of ideas it is? Many of the institutions the punks of the 70s and 80s were disaffected by (in the UK at least) were relics of Imperial reign; from the Queen, to the Parliament, to favouritism and the old-boy network, all were historical anachronisms. Do we say that we are the punks that write about steam, or do we let the iconoclasts of these fictional worlds have their say?

It's not an easy problem to solve and I'm not trying to denigrate a genre that many people are very fond of, but surely there must be elements that I'm either missing (so, please feel free to recommend something for me to read if you have any suggestions) or that have been overlooked in the pursuit of swash and buckle and high adventure.

Would you agree with the sentiment that letting the punk back into Steampunk can only enrich a genre which is in danger of becoming a description of the window dressing rather than the strange view into weirdly familiar and exciting territories that it could be?